S.F. courts warn of budget disaster, huge delays

SAN FRANCISCO Crisis could lead to 200 layoffs, close 25 S.F. courts

Judge of San Francisco Superior Court Katherine Feinstein held a press conference on Monday, July 18, 2011 in San Francisco Calif., to discuss the budget cuts made to the courts in San Francisco.

Judge of San Francisco Superior Court Katherine Feinstein held a press conference on Monday, July 18, 2011 in San Francisco Calif., to discuss the budget cuts made to the courts in San Francisco.

Photo: Michelle Terris, The Chronicle

Photo: Michelle Terris, The Chronicle

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Judge of San Francisco Superior Court Katherine Feinstein held a press conference on Monday, July 18, 2011 in San Francisco Calif., to discuss the budget cuts made to the courts in San Francisco.

Judge of San Francisco Superior Court Katherine Feinstein held a press conference on Monday, July 18, 2011 in San Francisco Calif., to discuss the budget cuts made to the courts in San Francisco.

Photo: Michelle Terris, The Chronicle

S.F. courts warn of budget disaster, huge delays

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It will soon take hours to pay a traffic ticket in San Francisco, months to get court records and at least a year and a half to get a divorce. With a few exceptions, only criminal cases will go to trial.

Two hundred Superior Court employees, more than 40 percent of the staff, are about to be notified that they will be laid off Sept. 30 because of devastating losses of state funding.

"The civil justice system in San Francisco is collapsing," Katherine Feinstein, the court's presiding judge, said Monday.

Effects of the newly approved, bare-bones state budget are already being felt in programs ranging from child care to university tuition and access. But leaders of California's judicial system, the largest in the nation, say courts up and down the state will be hit hard as well, with cuts of $350 million in operations and $310 million in a courthouse construction fund that once could be tapped for emergencies.

Feinstein said it will be worse in San Francisco, where courts have coped with money shortages since 2008 by ordering unpaid staff furloughs, reducing services and draining a $10 million reserve fund to avoid laying off employees.

"Now we're broke, and it will not be easy to ever put this court back together again," she said at a news conference.

Courtrooms to close

Facing a $13.75 million deficit in an $88 million budget, Feinstein said, the court plans to close 25 of its 63 courtrooms on Oct. 3, all in the Civic Center courthouse at 400 McAllister St.

She said layoff notices have already been sent to 11 of the court's 12 commissioners, who handle juvenile, traffic and probate cases. Their cases will be reassigned to the court's 51 judges.

The law gives priority to criminal cases, with deadlines for bringing defendants to trial or dismissing charges, so nearly all the shuttered courtrooms will be those currently devoted to civil cases - disputes over auto accidents, housing, defective products, business dealings and neighborhood relations.

Family law cases with urgent needs - child abuse and neglect, custody and domestic violence - will still get the early hearings required by law. But cutbacks in courtrooms and staff will leave less time for judges to consider each case and decide how to help stressed families, said Claire Williams, director of San Francisco's family court.

Feinstein said the 18-month wait for a divorce - now available in about five months - "will leave many families in very uncomfortable states."

Impacts elsewhere

The impact will apparently be less severe in other Bay Area counties, where courts have been laying off employees for several years - 73 in Alameda County and 46 in Contra Costa, according to court officials. But people who need court services will still suffer, said Beth Freeman, presiding judge of San Mateo County Superior Court, which also laid off workers in 2009.

In a court clerk's office, "what today might take 10 minutes will take an hour of waiting," she said. "Families in the middle of a crisis with child custody issues will have to wait. We're going to do the best job we can, but we're crippled."

Some of the hardship projections could be modified Friday when the state Judicial Council meets in San Francisco to decide how the budget cuts should be apportioned. The council could ask the Legislature to increase court funding by raising filing fees, and could also decide to make more money available for local courts by reducing spending on its own operations, including a statewide computer system that has far exceeded its budget.

Feinstein said she isn't expecting much help from the Judicial Council, whose decisions "have not been in the best interests of this court."

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who chairs the council, said Monday that judicial leaders are still looking for ways to ease the impact of "these unprecedented cuts" on the courts.

"The public's access to justice and even basic civil rights (is) at risk," she said in a statement.